Amateur Radio Stuff!

Category Archives: Madeira

I was going to get up early.. but decided, looking out at the weather, I’d go back to bed for a little while I’d had the Tracer Battery on charge overnight, even though it was only about 1/3 used..

After breakfast, a final check I had everything, I jumped in the car, driving towards the middle of Funchal, to find the road up through Monte, on the way to CT3/MI-004.
Lots of windy roads, hairpin bends, all good fun (at least with not much traffic about!) The higher I got, the more the amount of water running down the sides of the road told me it wasn’t going to be a very dry day!

Soon I came to the junction, signposted to Pico do Areiro, and turned off, held up for a few moments by some workmen doing some logging work. Around half the way along the road, the clouds rolled in, visibility dropped to about 15m, and the ICE warning lit up on the dashboard!The thermometer showing 3C…
Eventually reaching the top, I missed the car park sign in the mist and ended up having to drive around the roundabout at the end, and back down to the car park.
Being such a nice day (not!), I think there were 4 cars in the car park! I parked close to the bottom, in order to do at least some walking up the hill!

Up the steps, past the cafe building it was impossible to even see the radar dome! I had a quick wander about, up the wheelchair ramp, up the steps to the ‘trig’, looking for somewhere suitable for the ‘shack’There is a radar dome there… somewhere!
Since it wasn’t too busy (I probably saw less than 25 people all the time I was there) I bungied the pole to the fence post mid way up the steps, by a nice ‘seat’, which was rather nice!
Again, I unravelled the linked dipole to somewhere between the 20m and 40m links, and wrapped the ends around the fence top. I decided to use the amp from the start, so cabled it all up.The ‘shack’ looking like it’s at the end of the world!
Close to 12:30, I spotted myself on 21Mhz, and within 20 minutes, had 18 QSOs in the log.
However, there appeared to be a problem.. The amplifier appeared to be intermittently powering off and back on again, a bit of further investigation showed that the 817 was intermittently using the internal batteries. It looked like an issue with the Tracer battery…
I had a similar issue with one on G/WB-004 last year which I’d put down to the cold.. being rather chilly here, it could be the same, I put it in the back pack, and it appeared to solve the problem.
Dropping down to 14MHz I recorded a further 17 QSOs in the next 20 minutes.
Going to 28MHz, I then recorded 50 QSOs in just over an hour, including a s2s with 9H3BT/P on 9h/ma-001, which was a nice surprise!

‘Spot the battery’…. it’s in the bag!

However, the battery problem appeared to have returned, meaning that I was sometimes running close to 50W, then dropping to 2.5W on internal 817 battery, then back up again.. Not ideal.
A bit of wiggling about with cables, seemed to have made things a little better, so I went to 21MHz and tried again..
A s2s with SP8RHP/P on sp/bw-003 ensued, followed by another 3 QSOs.. Finally going to 24MHz for a further 6 QSOs before taking a few pics, and packing up, once calls were being unanswered.View up to the highest point.

The path ‘PR1’, apparently to nowhere!

Thanks, once again to anyone who called in, and apologies if I missed anyone!

Time

Call

Band

Mode

Notes

12:27z

G4WSB

21MHz

SSB

12:27z

EA2LU

21MHz

SSB

12:28z

ON4FI

21MHz

SSB

12:29z

HB9MKV

21MHz

SSB

12:30z

EI9GLB

21MHz

SSB

12:30z

OE7FMH

21MHz

SSB

12:31z

G8ADD

21MHz

SSB

12:32z

DJ6OK

21MHz

SSB

12:32z

OK1SDE

21MHz

SSB

12:33z

M3FEH

21MHz

SSB

12:34z

G6TUH

21MHz

SSB

12:36z

M0MDA

21MHz

SSB

12:37z

G0RQL

21MHz

SSB

12:38z

EB2CZF

21MHz

SSB

12:38z

DL8MLD

21MHz

SSB

12:40z

M6KVJ

21MHz

SSB

12:42z

OE7PHI

21MHz

SSB

12:43z

SV2OXS

21MHz

SSB

12:53z

EA8/PA7ZEE

14MHz

SSB

12:55z

G0RQL

14MHz

SSB

12:57z

GI4ONL

14MHz

SSB

12:57z

M6KVJ

14MHz

SSB

12:59z

G0HRT

14MHz

SSB

13:00z

DL3HXX

14MHz

SSB

13:00z

EA2CKX

14MHz

SSB

13:02z

DF5WA

14MHz

SSB

13:03z

PA0INA

14MHz

SSB

13:04z

AE4FZ

14MHz

SSB

13:04z

OE7PHI

14MHz

SSB

13:04z

EA1LQ

14MHz

SSB

13:05z

G0HRT

14MHz

SSB

13:08z

PE1RMO

14MHz

SSB

13:09z

G6ODU

14MHz

SSB

13:10z

OK2PDT

14MHz

SSB

13:20z

G6TUH

28MHz

SSB

13:20z

KB1RJD

28MHz

SSB

13:21z

KB1RJC

28MHz

SSB

13:22z

M0IML

28MHz

SSB

13:22z

G0TDM

28MHz

SSB

13:23z

M6KVJ

28MHz

SSB

13:24z

DL6ZG

28MHz

SSB

13:25z

DL2EF

28MHz

SSB

13:26z

KW4CK

28MHz

SSB

13:28z

M0MDA

28MHz

SSB

13:30z

DL6MST

28MHz

SSB

13:31z

AC1Z

28MHz

SSB

13:32z

W1OW

28MHz

SSB

13:33z

IK1GPG

28MHz

SSB

13:34z

UA3GJM

28MHz

SSB

13:34z

ON7DQ

28MHz

SSB

13:36z

F4HJP

28MHz

SSB

13:37z

DG5FEB

28MHz

SSB

13:38z

DK7DU

28MHz

SSB

13:39z

IK2ZEC

28MHz

SSB

13:39z

N2BTD

28MHz

SSB

13:40z

W8IZC

28MHz

SSB

13:41z

PA2BT

28MHz

SSB

13:43z

EI9JU

28MHz

SSB

13:46z

W4CLJ

28MHz

SSB

13:47z

DJ1SD

28MHz

SSB

13:51z

KI4AAU

28MHz

SSB

13:52z

R4FCJ

28MHz

SSB

13:53z

2E0YYY

28MHz

SSB

14:05z

W4DOW

28MHz

SSB

14:06z

F6HFI

28MHz

SSB

14:08z

KD2FND

28MHz

SSB

14:10z

ON5SWA

28MHz

SSB

14:11z

HB9AGH

28MHz

SSB

14:11z

R2EA

28MHz

SSB

14:12z

N4EX

28MHz

SSB

14:13z

VE1WT

28MHz

SSB

14:16z

KV4WN

28MHz

SSB

14:16z

HB9BQU

28MHz

SSB

14:17z

M0DAZ

28MHz

SSB

14:18z

OE3GGS

28MHz

SSB

14:20z

M0JLA

28MHz

SSB

14:20z

RZ3AR

28MHz

SSB

14:22z

G3TJE

28MHz

SSB

14:22z

OE3JTB

28MHz

SSB

14:23z

9H3BT/P

28MHz

SSB

14:24z

IK1VQY

28MHz

SSB

14:26z

G3ZKN

28MHz

SSB

14:27z

W5CL

28MHz

SSB

14:28z

DL3JPN

28MHz

SSB

14:41z

SP8RHP/P

21MHz

SSB

14:45z

VE2JCW

21MHz

SSB

14:46z

OZ4RT

21MHz

SSB

14:48z

DK7ZH

21MHz

SSB

14:58z

HB9AGH

24MHz

SSB

14:59z

HB9MKV

24MHz

SSB

15:01z

DK7ZH

24MHz

SSB

15:01z

WX4ET

24MHz

SSB

15:04z

OE5JKL

24MHz

SSB

15:05z

DL2BXE

24MHz

SSB

Getting back onto the main road, I managed to miss a load of very deep potholes… except one…
Convinced that I’d probably blown the tyre, or at least bent the rim, I stopped and had a look.. I couldn’t see any damage, and thought I’d got away with it…
However, in the middle of what passes for ‘rush hour’ in Funchal, some nice YLs, whilst stopped at traffic lights began to attract my attention (no, not in THAT way…) and pointing to the front of the car.. yes… tyre was just about flat.. typical..
No problem.. I called the ‘helpline’ as instructed, to be told that they didn’t do punctures, despite what I’d been told, however, they would come out for around 100 euros.. umm… no..
Having replaced numerous wheels in my time, I’m more than capable of doing so, but didn’t relish the prospect of doing so in some narrow back street, on the wrong side of the road.. The nice people at Avis, sent one of their guys out, who did it instead
Only downside, was, since there was a small tear in the sidewall, it wasn’t repairable, and hence, I ‘lost’ the 100 euro excess… ah well, At least Filipe called me, and apologised for the attitude of the third party ‘helpline’

So, all in all, 2 days of good fun, gamboling around somewhat scary roads, 2 SOTA summits activated, if a little expensively!
Next time… can someone remind me to actually take my floppy brimmed hat with me to a summit please? Sunburnt ears apparently cause quite a bit of hilarity!

Waiting in hotel reception for the guy from Avis to turn up to take me for the hire car at 9am, hobbling around with very blistered feet from so much walking the previous day (not a great start!)… he never turned up… until 10am.. Marvellous.
So, eventually, by 10:30am, I should be on my way, Final word from Filipe at Avis, was “if anything goes wrong, even a puncture, just call the ‘helpline’ you are covered for everything” (more on that later!)

So, equipped with a paper map, and a copy of ‘locus free’ and an offline map of Madeira, I was off to CT3/MI-006, only nearly 2 hours late.. still it wouldn’t take too long to get there… would it?
The Locus Free ‘map’ showed that, more than likely, the road from Encumeda to MI-006 wasn’t open, although nobody could tell me for definite that it was.. So, I decided to drive along VR1 to Ribeira Brava, then take VE3/ER101 along to Ponto Del Sol, then the ER222/ER209 up to ER110 just along from MI-006 – easy!

Well it would have been if I hadn’t taken a wrong turn right at the start, and found myself in the middle of Funchal.. Never mind, soon on VR1 along to Ribeira Brava, where… ummm, I took a wrong turning, into the middle of town! After getting stuck behind 2 taxi drivers sitting in their cars next to each other, having a little chat, I managed to get back on the right road again!

Then, a little further along the road, missed the turn off onto ER222, and ended up in Arco Da Calheta, where I managed to pick up a road signed ‘Pico da Urze’ – That would do, not too far along ER110 from where I needed to be.
(This would have been a lot easier with a navigator! Then again, it’s fun driving around narrow roads with hairpin bends on holiday, on the wrong side of the road! )
I was held up some more by a tourist bus, obviously on a day trip, winding up the same, narrow road!

Eventually making it onto ER110, past the hotel at Pico da Urze, and to the cross roads, where it was made clear that, as suspected, the road through to Encumenda was indeed, still closed. Only a little further along the road, and I found the side road, along to the car park.

Finding the hill to be shrouded in cloud, I pulled on my boots, and started the relatively short walk.. Turning back after a couple of hundred yards as I’d left the camera in the car!

Take a right turn through the woods!

Still, it took less than half an hour in all, along the track, right, through the woods, and left to climb up the hill, much as described in previous reports, and I was up the top..
There were probably another 10 or so people there, and the cloud was swirling around. The sweeping vistas from the couple of viewing platforms consisted of… grey clouds…. ah well.

I had a quick look around, and decided to bungee the 4m pole to the end of one of the fences, one end of the link dipole wrapped around the top of the fence, the other end chucked unceremoniously onto the top of a gorse bush. (Only unravelled as far as mid way between the 20M and 40M links as I didn’t think 40M would be very useful)

No need for a guying kit!

Looking at RRT, I saw that Carolyn, GW6WRW/p had just been spotted on 21Mhz, and set the antenna up for that, 5W from the 817nd saw her as the first contact, s2s, not a bad start!
I then spotted myself on 20M and attempted with the 5w, rapidly finding that attaching the amp would be a better option! So on it went. Quickly followed by 22 or so QSOs
Once they had dried up, 10M seemed to be very lively, so the antenna was dropped and the links changed to 10M. 34 QSOs later, and Mike, 2E0YYY came on, asking if I could drop down between 28.3 and 28.5 to enable US Tech chasers a go, one in particular, N2BTD, who was very patient as I struggled to get him in the log, but got there in the end, Thanks, Brian!

The extensive ‘shack’

A quick change to 12M saw another 8 QSOs, and a final change back to 10, saw a further 2, by which time, since all calls seem to have dried up, it was time for a couple of photos, and get packed up.
One last wander across to one of the viewing platforms allowed me to snap a peak above the clouds, just!

At last! A view, of sorts…

Walking back down, it appeared that I could possibly be able to take a pic of a Brocken Spectre..

Was I going closer to the edge to take a photo? Absolutely not!

However, I thought it best not to get too close to the edge of the hill, just in case!
About 20 minutes later, I was back at the car, the only one left in either of the 2 car parks.

Just about ready to descend, clouds started clearing!

71 QSOs in close to 2 hours, many thanks to everyone who called in, and apologies to anyone who I missed.Getting back to the hotel, was a lot easier, drive along ER110 to the cross roads, turn left, and follow the road downhill until I reached VE3, then onto VR1 and turn right at some point before getting to the middle of Funchal!